PerformanceManager provides methods for obtaining statistical data about various aspects of system performance, as generated and maintained by the performance providers. It also defines historical performance intervals and it identifies the set of performance counters that you can use to obtain performance data. The following table shows the PerformanceManager properties.

Property Description
description Composite object that includes information about the types of counters (counterType) and statistics (statsType) available on the system.
historicalInterval Array of system-defined performance intervals (PerfInterval data objects). Each object defines the interval between rollup events, the collection level, and the time period that the data is stored on the system.
  • For an ESXi system, the array contains a single performance interval. You cannot modify the ESXi performance interval.
  • For vCenter Server systems, the PerfInterval objects control how ESXi performance data are rolled up and stored in the database. You can modify some of the PerfInterval properties on a vCenter Server.
perfCounter Array of PerfCounterInfo data objects. The array identifies all of the performance counters known to the vCenter Server at the time a client accesses the array. The set of counters may change as ESXi hosts are added or removed from vCenter management. Each PerfCounterInfo object contains metadata associated with a performance counter.

The PerformanceManager methods allow you to retrieve performance statistics and to retrieve metadata that defines the statistics. The following table classifies the methods and describes their purposes.

Method Type Method Purpose
Performance data availability QueryAvailablePerfMetric Returns PerfMetricId objects which identify the counter data available on the specified entity. For example, a virtual machine provides the memory counter granted, which indicates the amount of physical memory that is mapped for the virtual machine. The PerfMetricId object for the mem.granted.average counter specifies the system-defined counter ID. Since this is a memory counter, the PerfMetricId.instance property is empty.
Performance data retrieval QueryPerf Returns statistics for a specific list of managed entities that provide performance data.
QueryPerfComposite Returns statistics for a host and its virtual machines. This method accepts the refreshRate for current statistics or the intervalId of one of the historical intervals as a parameter. Supported for the HostSystem managed entity only.
Performance counter metadata retrieval QueryPerfCounter Returns PerfCounterInfo data objects for the specified list of counter IDs.
QueryPerfCounterByLevel Returns PerfCounterInfo data objects for the specified collection level.
Performance provider information QueryPerfProviderSummary Returns the PerfProviderSummary data object for the specified managed object.
Collection parameters ResetCounterLevelMapping Restores a set of performance counters to their default collection levels.
UpdateCounterLevelMapping Changes the collection level for a set of performance counters.
UpdatePerfInterval Modifies the system-defined performance intervals.